Sir Alex Gives Thumb Up to Congestion Charging

It’s the rare day when two major interests in my life, traffic and English football (“soccer”), coincide.

That’s why I was delighted to note that Manchester United’s coach, Sir Alex Ferguson, has come out in favor of the congestion charge scheme that Mancunians are about to start voting on by mail (the result will be announced December 12). According to the Guardian, Ferguson, in a letter to the Manchester Evening News, wrote that congestion charging offers a “once in a lifetime opportunity to put Greater Manchester in the premier league for public transport — so don’t score an own goal.” If the scheme is approved, nearly $3 billion in funds (or, roughly, the cost of Man U’s current player contracts) will be put into public transport in Manchester.

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How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.